[Commlist] CFP: Starchitecture

*Call for contributions*

**

*Edited book: /Cinematic Starchitecture: the celebrity status of 
architectural structures in film/*

Famous architecture has circulated throughout cinema history and its 
diverse genres, performing a myriad of roles and functions that exceed 
its everyday use or its identity as an aesthetic object, location 
marker, or spatial setting. The proposed book /Cinematic Starchitecture/ 
builds upon the term ‘starchitecture’ that was coined in the late 1990s 
for such dramatic structures as Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to 
argue further that the celebrity status of buildings has been conferred 
by, and reproduced in cinema since its beginnings. We claim that a 
crucial part of an architectural structure’s celebrity status is its 
engagement with (and codification by) the media, and cinema in 
particular. Countless films globally have featured actors interacting 
with famous buildings as inimitable components of narrative exposition, 
character development, and/or identity construction (e.g., race, gender, 
and class). Starchitecture in cinema can also serve a commercial 
function, much like the branding of products, thereby augmenting an 
edifice’s and a film’s publicity value in a mutually mediating process. 
An example of starchitecture might make a series of film appearances, 
thus creating the continuity of certain architectural characteristics or 
‘performances’ and so facilitating the creation of a branded identity.


Such images of the built environment may include real buildings but also 
their production-designed copies or pastiches, which have subsequently 
circulated into broader culture. When this happens, architectural 
structures can work much like film stars, employed in pre-production, 
post-production, distribution and publicity strategies, such as film 
trailers, posters, and other promotional materials. Fan culture also 
engages with starchitecture through tours and pilgrimages, reinforcing 
the cinematic role of architectural structures in constructing a complex 
personality in film and popular culture.

The proposed edited book seeks to explore the following general 
questions and specific issues. We invite proposals for chapters focusing 
on (but not limited to) starchitecture in a single film, series of 
films, in production and publicity venues, or in global cinema culture:

  * How or why have specific architectural structures (either in single
    films or across a range of films) become important to cinema?
  * What are the processes by which architectural structures become
    starchitecture in film?
  * What are film “uses” of key architectural spaces, as opposed to
    architectural intentions for use?
  * How does the built environment inform the actions of characters or a
    film’s narrative structure?
  * How do iconic buildings or structures serve as memory images or
    ciphers of nostalgia through cinema and culture?
  * How does starchitecture generate or facilitate images of futuristic
    utopias or dystopias?
  * How does starchitecture construct intersectional identities across
    films or genres?
  * How might architectural structures effectively function as film
    stars or characters in film?
  * How does starchitecture operate as cinematic spectacle?
  * How does starchitecture inform the development of local, national,
    regional or global socio-cultural or political identity or spatiality?
  * How does architecture serve as public image or performative space as
    developed in (and through) film?
  * How do architectural structures enter public consciousness and
    develop political and ideological functions through film?
  * How does film starchitecture structure tourist journeys,
    travelogues, or traumalogues?
  * How does film starchitecture impact architectural theory and practice?
The proposed length of each chapter will be 6500-7000 words.

Please send your 300-word abstract, 5-10 references, and a short bio to: 
Paul Newland at (p.newland /at/ worc.ac.uk) <mailto:(p.newland /at/ worc.ac.uk)>and 
Merrill Schleier at (mschleier /at/ pacific.edu) <mailto:(mschleier /at/ pacific.edu)>

Deadline for abstracts: 1 November 2022


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